While most of us have been brought up to trust that prayer involves pleading to God to greatly help, save, fix problems and bring us things in this world, that is not true prayer nor its purpose. Prayer in A TRAINING COURSE in Miracles (ACIM) is fairly different and very beautiful. More than a song, it is joyous exchange of Love and thanks between God and His Creations that employs the forgiveness process to improve the mind until the Prayer Song is all that remains. It is the ticket home so understanding true prayer, and forgiveness, is worth the time in retraining your brain.
Prayer is exchanging (sharing) a Song of Love and Creation or judgments of the ego predicated on what you require (agree with) in the mind. There is absolutely no other way. In the Course, your brain (content) is split between God and the ego; and you also are choosing constantly with a side as cause for effect.Forms (all things of the world) are miscreations reflecting the ego’s judgmental thought system. We’ve managed to get up (miscreated this world) and may give it up anytime by correcting the mind (forgiveness). True prayer requires this correction of the mind as God has nothing to do with forms.
What Prayer is Not:
Because you are always deciding, everything you ask for when you pray is what matters. When you plead in prayer to possess God fix a form problem with another form problem, you’re asking the ego mind for help (not God). Those forms and needs are deemed more important than God’s Love that will remain hidden to the degree you choose the illusion.
All external things (forms) are needs. Other labels are wants, desires, status, problems, sickness, human love (special relationships), gifts and goals in this world, etc. They are everything you choose as substitutes for God’s Love and the ego will distort the purpose of prayer by using them to further the illusion. Therefore, prayer can’t be about “forms” or “needs” in any way.
The Purpose of Prayer:
The Song of Prayer is defined by the Course as a Song of Creation, Love and gratitude being sung from the Father to the Son and returned from the Son to the daddy. God gave this gift of Love to His Son at Creation in order that it is a single voice shared by both the Creator and Created. Continuously sharing Love and Creation back and forth extends them forever in eternity. That is prayer’s purpose.
Within this form world of illusion, this prayer is still something special from God offered through the Holy Spirit, the memory of God in the mind. It’s how you reach God in the illusion. Whoever has ever remembered the littlest instant of this all-inclusive joy must begin questioning what he is choosing (praying for) and how to change his mind so he can have that all enough time.
True Prayer and Forgiveness:
True prayer is: (1) asking to receive what’s already there, The Song; and, (2) along the way, using forgiveness (correction of your brain) to give up the ego forms or what’s not necessarily there. Joining with Love in true prayer is asking for nothing (i.e., no illusion, forms or needs) so you end up receiving everything (Love). course in miracles One problem. One solution.
Forgiveness (correction of the mind) is a section of true prayer and makes the process go quicker. Prayer is timeless and continues on forever, and forgiveness is the illusory ladder in time that returns your brain to this endless exchange. Forgiveness disappears once the mind is completely corrected and remembers only The Song.
The big secret of true prayer and forgiveness would be to focus on disregarding and giving up the things you think you want and need in the illusion, even the specifics, as this asks for your brain to be returned to Truth (Love). You are not furthering the illusion. You’re agreeing with God that (a) you’re a mind; (b) this form world isn’t real; (c) you made a blunder; and, (d) you can choose again.
Using correction of your brain (forgiveness) places those forms and needs on God’s altar, or in his hands, as idols which are only anything you have chosen to be more important than God’s Love. No more wanting anything before His Love, the only effect God could return is your remembrance of Him. The more you give up, the more meaningless the planet becomes and the faster you sing His Song.
Prayer in the Illusion:
Because the mind still resides with God, the Course says you don’t have to decide alone and really should ask the Holy Spirit for help deciding and wait for the solution. Otherwise, you’ve already decided with the ego. If you must decide on the spot, you’ll receive the appropriate “need” answer right then.An answer is an echo of God’s Voice from the Song of Prayer. You’re not requesting the echo itself. You are choosing the gift of Love from The Song by giving up all form needs. “Need” answers in the illusion are contained within that echo even through the correction of the mind process. They are met at the level of the forgiveness ladder it is possible to understand and accept.
